Travellers
by jimthefishisaninnuendo
Summary: A village in Maine is under more duress than even The Avengers know how to handle. So they call in a few favours. The trouble is, The Doctor has met the so-called Regina Mills before, and maybe even understands her more than she herself does. Multifandom! Once Upon A Time, Avengers, Doctor Who, and Sherlock; contains swearing.


**A/N: Hi! So, this is the first fic I have posted up on here. This is a multifandom story incorporating the characters of The Avengers (or Marvel's Avengers Assemble if you're from the UK), Once Upon A Time, Doctor Who, and hopefully Sherlock and Torchwood later on. I don't need to tell you that I own none of the above, and if I did there would be a lot more crossovers. Anyway, this chapter mainly focuses on Once Upon A Time, Doctor Who, and Loki. I hope you enjoy :)**_  
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_"Why would you want to do this, 'Gina? What could possibly have happened to turn you into this… This.." The Doctor waved his hands at her._

_"This what? Monster? I'm a long way past monster, Doctor, and it doesn't matter what has happened. What matters is I need something and you owe me." Turning her back to him, Regina busied herself tidying the ornaments gathered on the table.__  
_

_"But your own father! Where's Daniel, why didn't he stop you?" At this, she straightened, her face - still hidden from the Doctor - a mask of pain._

_"Don't you_ ever _talk to me about Daniel!" she yelled, before turning down and looking at him. "Just… Please. I need your help."_  
_"The TARDIS can't do what you're asking, and my conscience can't let me help you, either. Just, please, try to reconsider?"_

_Regina shook her head, trying to think of what to do. She wished she'd never had to go to him for help, but he'd owed her the favour. Looks like this was one that was never going to be paid back._

_"Please 'Gina, look at what you are about to do! Have you any idea of the implications that this will c-"_

_"I am perfectly aware of the implications. But they deserve it. Every. Single. One." They didn't deserve to have a Happy Ending, not after what they'd done to her. None of them did._

_"B-"_

_"Just go, please. Ju-just leave me. I'll manage without you and your fucking TARDIS!" She waved a hand and the doors slammed in The Doctor's face. He didn't understand. She was stupid to think that he would've. He knew nothing of revenge, he already had his perfect Happy Ending._

_When Regina had slammed the door in his face, he'd known there was definitely something wrong. The last time The Doctor had visited her, she had been happy with Daniel. He still wondered what had happened to her. Turning away, he had jogged back to the TARDIS, long brown coat flapping in the wind and red converse slapping the hard tiled floor. That was it. All of his companions visited, all of his friends checked up on him. It was time to face his death._

He didn't know why that memory had suddenly come back to him, but he suspected the TARDIS. She'd always had a soft spot for Regina, and it _had_ been hundreds of years ago now. He just wanted to know what had happened to make her so cold, so.. Evil. But it was not as if he could go back and ask her.

Just days after their conversation, Regina had enacted the 'curse', and The Doctor could not locate her - or the other affected - for love nor money. He had tried, with each new regeneration he'd tried to see if his new brain could come up with something, but to no avail. He did what he always did, pushed Regina to the back of his mind.

The Doctor had other things to think about. Like where in the universe were his in-laws? He was supposed to be meeting them here, in Leadworth, on this exact day at this exact time. But they, for once, were late. Hours late, in fact. Just as he was about to get back into the TARDIS, The Doctor spotted two figures waving at him from the top of the hill. He could tell it was Amy and Rory even from a distance, and they began to run down the hill towards the TARDIS. His jubilant grin, however, changed to a gasp of surprise as a huge shadow covered the sky.

Looking up in shock he recognized the form of… The Valiant? No, it couldn't have been the Valiant. The Sontarans had destroyed that long ago. But it looked very like it, except for the glaring difference of an American flag, and a strange logo. The Doctor thought he recognised it, was it SHIELD? Probably.

SHIELD was the organisation that was America's answer to UNIT, after their forces had been retracted from America due to their incompetence over Miracle Day. They'd been around much longer than that though, but in a sort of freelance capacity, much like Torchwood. Which reminded him, he really needed to talk to Jack. Not today though, he had more pressing things on his mind. Like the large aircraft descending upon the small town - village, really - of Leadworth.

The engines were definitely of the same calibre, The Doctor wasn't surprised if they had used Valiant's design for a model, instead of building their own. Just then, Amy and Rory reached him. "What the.. Hell is that!" Amy panted, exhausted from her run.  
"If this ends up with us dying again Doctor, I'll kill you!" was Rory's predictable input. The Doctor tuned out. He had no time to listen to their chattering when he needed to THINK!

And because his stupid, stupid brain was trying to think - in its usual annoyingly erratic way - the Doctor didn't notice the gangway until it was too late, and it had thudded down in front of them.

"Doctor…"

He didn't know who had said that, probably Rory. But it was enough that it had sounded scared. When humans were scared, it was sensible for him to be scared too. Sometimes he didn't react as expected, and after all, humans were experienced in fear. Taking both of their hands, he walked forwards.

* * *

Regina awoke to a strange silence. None of the birds - or Henry's new-found crickets - were making any noise. It wasn't as if it was too late in the morning for them, either. She looked at the clock, and it read 4am. An obscene time for her to be waking up of her own accord, she usually needed an alarm to rouse her.

Well, it wouldn't hurt to get up now, since there was no question of getting back to sleep.

Slipping into a dress and blazer, she crept past Henry's room and down the wide stairs to the kitchen. Might as well have a coffee, after all. It was the silence that bothered her. Usually - even at this time of the morning - there was people out and about, whether at work or just walking their dog. It was a silence that reminded her of the way armies would ambush in… Well, the old days before they'd come here.

Shaking that thought from her head before it took hold, she tried to think of other things. She really couldn't afford to think about those times, not any more. The quiet still spooked her, though. There was something just not quite right about it all.

It did really feel like those times this morning. The air was filled with the prickling electricity that stayed on your skin and reminded you of days gone by, as if the clouds anticipated something, something big. It was a day for battles and triumphs and conquests, or it would have been, had this been the Old World.

Regina chuckled softly. She hadn't thought so poetically in a long while, burdened as she was with what she now saw as a terrible decision. But of course she'd had no choice, and they could never go back to the Old World, not now.

The sun was out properly now, and the little town was quite pretty in this light. It glinted off the skylights and windows and made the roads, still wet with last night's rain, gleam with a golden shine. Times like this made Regina think that it all might have been worth it. But then reality calmed crashing down and she realised, as she always did, that it would never be worth it, never be okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.

It was then that she saw Henry sitting under her apple tree. She wondered what he thought about when he sat by himself like that. How to prove that she was evil, no doubt. She'd never been evil, not really. The people she had ruled had had respect for her, she'd looked after their children and made sure there was no crime. In fact, the only evil things she'd ever done were to exact her revenge on Snow. Maybe Henry would understand that one day.

She'd make him a cocoa. She could bring it out to him and if he didn't want to sit with her that was fine, but maybe a small gesture would help him to see that she did love him.

A few minutes later Regina walked across the large lawn, two steaming cups of cocoa in her hands. Sitting down next to Henry, she offered him a cup with a small smile.  
"Hey" he said quietly.  
"Hey" she replied.  
It wasn't really much, but it proved that deep down, Henry might actually like her. And that was all she needed.

It was a while before they spoke again. She'd asked him what had woken him up, and he'd said the quiet. She said that it was the same for her. They'd stayed like that for a bit, just watching the silence, and then Henry had gotten up to look at a bug of some sort and the moment had been broken.

So she got up too, brushing the dewdrops from her dress and examining her apple tree. It hadn't been well lately, and the leaves were definitely thinning out on the right hand side. It was as she was inspecting one of the branches that she saw it. A flash of black that disappeared as quick as it came, diving behind a bush. But it was enough. The electric air tingled on her skin as she sensed that this_was_an ambush, just as she'd thought. And not only was this an ambush, this was an trap. A trap that was about to be sprung_right now_.

Fast as lightning, Regina whirled around.

"RUN HENRY" she screamed as the world exploded around her, the shouts and bellowed orders of an organised platoon echoing through the still morning. She managed to fight off one of them with a well placed kick in the balls, but they were surrounding her and yelling for her to get on the ground and she was straining to see Henry over the heads of what seemed like hundreds of soldiers clad in black with rifles and guns and all manner of accoutrements.

Suddenly she spotted him, darting towards the fence at the back of the lawn. And on his tail were three full-grown soldiers. They grabbed him as she watched, helpless to do anything as his eyes pleaded to her in fear and a ragged cloth was clamped over his mouth.

That was when the first of them grabbed her arm. With a rage born of a million hurts, Regina fought and fought. Around four if the men went down, but she had no hope against the lot of them. As they began to bring her down, however, she caught sight of something which made time slow to a halt. A blue box was parked at the gate of the garden, and a man stood outside it.

His face was younger than when she had last saw him, and his choice of clothing was… Questionable. But it was him alright. He had an aura of time about him that she'd never seen on anyone else, and his eyes held the pain of a million galaxies. And he was_here_.

He met her eyes for a moment and mouthed something. It could have been "sorry", but then again, for all she knew it could have been "I hate you", she didn't really have the time or the energy to decipher it. He averted his eyes as another cloth was held over her own mouth, and the opening doors of his wonderful machine were the last things she saw before her world began to fade.

—

Waking up in a cell is not unknown to Regina. There were plenty of times in her youth when she had not been let out of one room for weeks on end (at the hands of both her mother and the king). Being slapped awake by an armed guard and told that all of her rights had been stripped from her before being thrown into a cell that looked like something from a spaceship is another matter entirely. Another new occurrence is having a cell mate.

The man is slim, and from what she can gather in the darkness is wearing an elaborate metal gag. She wonders what he has done to deserve such. His eyes are glazed over as he leans against the steel wall of the cell, apparently oblivious to her abrupt arrival. Regina is curious. She might have a new ally in this one.

Focusing her eyes, she reaches out with a tendril of her - although depleted - magic towards the man, scanning to see of he is a threat. His magic pulses inside of him, a bright blue-green light that seems to have a life of its own. As if sensing her unobtrusive scan, the man sits bolt upright and leans forward. Cocking his head to one side, he meets her gaze. She decides to help him. Some conversation to pass the time won't go amiss, even if he does prove to be useless.

Gathering a small ball of magic inside her (the most she can gather in this land without magic), she sends it carefully towards the man, and the gag is slowly - more slowly than she would have liked - unlocked. It falls to the ground with a clatter. The task has drained her more than she has expected, and it's a battle to stay concious never mind move or speak. This world has never been kind to people of magic, and she has not used this much at one time since before they came to Storybrooke. Regina lets her eyes close.

* * *

Loki rubbed his jaw in relief. He'd been brought here by his brother, because apparently he could not be trusted alone in Asgaard. The gag, unfortunately, had come as part of the package. The woman hadn't spoken since she'd released the gag, and the dark of the cell made it hard to see what she was doing. Making a small spark using magic, he sent it to the roof of the cell and it illuminated the room a little.

The woman wasn't moving, her hands limp by her side. As he watched, her eyelids fluttered closed. Her breathing was laboured, too. Loki was confused. Such a small amount of magic shouldn't tire someone out so quickly. Unless… Something was blocking it. Sending out a tendril of his own magic, Loki found his hypothesis to be correct. Her magic was a dark purple, and it swirled inside her in untold amounts. But around it, constricting ever tighter, was sickly green barrier, blocking almost every use of it. He was surprised that even the tiny amount she'd used to help him had been able to escape.

She had helped him. It was only fair that he helped her in return.

Throwing a beam of magic at her, he closed his eyes and focused on the barrier. It soon broke apart from the force of the attack, and the woman sat up with a gasp. Lookin at her hands in shock, she sent a few blasts of magic into the air.

"Wh-what did you do?" she asked him.  
Loki grinned. "There was a block, to stop you using magic. Didn't you know it was there?" She shook her head.  
"Thanks" she smiled.

"So," Loki said "What are you in for?"  
"Made some bad decisions, put my trust in the wrong people" she replied ruefully, "you?"  
"I'm much the same, if you add in attempting to destroy the human race"  
"You say that as if you're not human"  
"That's because I'm not. My name is Loki, of Asgaard."  
"Of the Norse legends?" she asked with a small laugh.  
"Yes.. Why is that funny?"  
She was grinning now. "How's little Sleipnir?"

For fucks sake. Even stupid little humans had heard the story. His brother's doing, no doubt.

**A/N: So... did you like it? It would mean an awful lot if you'd take the time to read and review. Those sorts of things can make me happy on even the saddest of days.**


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